European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen mocked the launch of the European parliamentary election campaign by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has been overshadowed by spying scandals and suspicions of buying foreign influence.
The AfD’s main candidate, Maximilian Krahwas left out of the campaign launch event on Saturday, less than a week after a top Krah aide was arrested on charges of spying for China.
Krah himself is currently the subject of a preliminary investigation by German prosecutors into potential payments from Russia and China, and whether any payments may have influenced his work in the European Parliament.
“First covered up by the executive board, then hidden by the executive board – how about the AfD finally revealing the truth?” von der Leyen said on Sunday at an event for the youth wing of her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in the western German city of Aachen.
AfD leaders decided to stick with Krah despite the scandal, but removed him from the program of the party’s campaign launch event on Saturday.
Von der Leyen also defended proposals from the eurosceptic AfD that Germany should break away from the European Union.
Doing so would come at an immense cost to the German economy, von der Leyen said, citing a study by the German Economic Institute (IW).
The IW calculated that a so-called “Exit” (or Exit from Germany) would cost Germany about 10% of its economic output, von der Leyen said.
No Member State benefits more from the EU’s single market than Germany, von der Leyen said, noting that 55% of German exports go to other single market countries.
Leaving the EU would mean a loss of prosperity of 400-500 billion euros ($428-535 billion) per year for Germany and the loss of 2.2 million jobs.
“The AfD’s European program is a job-destroying program,” said von der Leyen.
